And Carlson said he had "sources" telling him that Weinstein had private investigators who had dug into Matt Lauer's own #MeToo problems, and that they "believe" (note that wiggle word) NBC was therefore itself "compromised" by threat of having these charges outed.

"Is squelching first-person accounts of sexual assault by powerful men consistent with Chuck Todd's view of journalism? Is it ethical -- did Chuck Todd ever complain about this inside the building at NBC? Why did he not quit over it? Or is it better to shut up and pretend that sexual assault did not happen in the hopes of keeping the highest paying job that he will ever have? Maybe that is the answer."

Carlson, on his Tuesday night show, suggested that NBC sat on the Weinstein story because it was worried that the film producer would tell the world about accusations against former "Today" show host Matt Lauer, who resigned after sexual harassment allegations were brought against him in the wake of the Weinstein scandal.

"People close to the story" believe NBC was compromised by private investigators hired by Weinstein, Carlson said.

"We spoke to a number of people with direct knowledge of the story and here's what we got: Harvey Weinstein had a long and documented history of using private investigators to learn damaging information about people who threatened him," Carlson said. "He did that repeatedly to many people. He did it to The New York Times, for example. Did he do that to the leadership of NBC? People close to the story believe that he did. Some within the company believe that Weinstein threatened to reveal damaging information about NBC’s then-biggest star Matt Lauer."

On Tuesday, NBC's Megyn Kelly -- a former Fox News host -- called on her own network to bring in an outside firm to conduct an investigation of how it handled Farrow's reporting on Weinstein, arguing it would be in the best interest of full transparency.

NBC is insisting on having its own internal cover-up people cover the story up, however.

"Senior Administration Official" Admits There's a Deep State in the White House "Thwarting" Trump

—Ace of Spades

But he or she claims this isn't a "Deep State," but a "steady state." You know, a "steady state" determined to protect the preferences of the permanent bureaucratic state against the intrusions by the elected president.

A senior administration official sounded an alarm Wednesday about President Donald Trump's "amorality" and "impetuous" leadership style in an unsigned opinion piece published in The New York Times.

The writer, claiming to be part of the "resistance" to Trump but not from the left, says, "Many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

The newspaper described the author of the anonymous column as "a senior official in the Trump administration."

The writer of the Times op-ed said Trump aides are aware of the president’s faults and "are trying to do what's right even when Donald Trump won't."

The writer also alleged "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment" because of the "instability" witnessed in the president.

... The writer adds: "This isn't the work of the so-called deep state. It's the work of the steady state."

The Rick Wilson: We #NeverTrumpers are Like Irish Monks Preserving the Texts of Christianity

—Ace of Spades

Rick Wilson pens another short, empty "article" for Politico, saying that now "NeverTrump" are monks preserving Christianity or something:

Like medieval Irish monks hunched over parchment by the light of a candle flame, we are illuminating the scrolls of conservatism while the storm rages and the tide of ignorance rises. We will be here when it ebbs.

These grifting nightcralers just write the same empty "articles" over and over, articles which break no news or new ground, but the left just keeps publishing them to advertise #NeverTrump to liberal donors.

You're disgusting @RadioFreeTom "The Republican gubernatorial nominee has sought and received Trump’s blessing, and has already begun to emulate Trump’s race-baiting, asking voters not to “monkey this up,” by voting for his general election opponent." https://t.co/K2vHgp1dhi

Today in Senate Theater

—Ace of Spades

Kavanaugh said it wasn't up to the nominee to make decisions on documents, but Durbin responded the amount of documents they received on him would reflect on him and his nomination.

"I think it's up to you," Durbin said, pointing at Kavanaugh. "I think it's up to you. If you said at this moment to this chairman and to this committee, ‘Stop, pause, hit the pause button, I don't want any cloud or shadow over this nomination. I trust the American people. I want them to trust me. I am prepared to disclose those public documents.'"

"If said at this moment, 'I don't want to have a cloud over this nomination, I am prepared to suggest to the committee and ask the committee humbly, please, withhold further hearings until you disclose everything,'" he added. "Why won't you do that?"

Although Feinstein allotted a portion of her opening statement to defending the feelings emanating against confirmation, it wasn't enough to placate progressives who viewed her apology as an act of heresy.

Brian Fallon, who served as the national press secretary for Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 presidential campaign, summed the pervading displeasure amongst progressives when he took to social media to denounce Feinstein's apology as "ridiculous."

As previously reported by the Washington Free Beacon, Fallon is currently the executive director of a special interest group fighting President Donald Trump's "takeover" of the federal judiciary.

Feinstein asked Kavanaugh about his dissent, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which he argued a handgun ban was unconstitutional. Feinstein asked which weapons were protected under the "common use" standard and "what evidence or study did you use to do that?"

Kavanaugh replied that, as a circuit judge, "I don't get to pick and choose which Supreme Court precedents I get to follow. I follow them all."

After some back and forth, Feinstein interjected, "Let me interrupt you. I think we're on totally different wavelengths. I'm talking about your statement on common use, as common use being a justification. And assault weapons are not in common use."

Kavanaugh responded that semiautomatic weapons were protected, since "there are millions and millions and millions of semiautomatic rifles that are possessed, so that seemed to fit common use."

Feinstein interrupted to argue that numbers of guns owned does not determine whether they are in common use.

"You're saying the numbers determine common use?" she asked. "Common use is an activity, it is not common storage or possession. It is use. So, what you said was that these weapons are commonly used. They are not."

People are buying "assault weapons" (by which she means only semi-automatic rifles that silly progressives believe "look scary") only to store them? Just to stockpile them? They're not using them?

David Harsanyi: "White Power" Absurdity Shows That the Left Is Filled With Low-Education Conspiracy Theorists, But Media Somehow Never Features Them In Their Reports

—Ace of Spades

Jake Tapper got the typical hoseannas from his soiboi "conservative" fans and of course Twitchy for telling the leftwing conspiracy theorists to cut it out, but you'll note, as usual, that was a For Twitter Eyes Only statement. He was telling them stop embarrassing the left.

You'll notice that he has a more prominent platform than his Twitter feed to discuss leftwing conspiracy theory smears and denounce them,* and yet... he doesn't.

He just says one thing on twitter and the Cuck Chorus cheers.

I'm truly perplexed by this phenomenon. Do the Twitter Addicts not realize there is a world beyond twitter? Do they not understand that Tapper has a supposed "news" show on CNN he could make these comments on, but steadfastly avoids doing so?

Do they think a Twitter mention is all that matters, because Twitter itself is all that matters?

* Actually, maybe he doesn't have a platform more prominent than his twitter feed. His TV show's ratings are appalling. And he works hard to make his show so unwatchable.

We decided to make things slightly more uncomfortable for the people who make some of the country’s most important decisions by bringing two LA-based paparazzi to Washington and having them track down Trump officials. pic.twitter.com/qyjKUcay5e

The Morning Rant

—OregonMuse

"So the geniuses at Nike have trotted out a new ad campaign featuring an a unemployed quarterback that no NFL team would touch with the slogan, quote, Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything, unquote. Now this is a bit of ex post facto switcheroo because it is doubtful that Kaepernick thought he would be unemployed because of his virtue signaling, and maybe he wouldn't be if his stats weren't so mediocre, but my question to the Nike marketing execs is, not to put too fine a point on it, are you all high?? Did they not notice the NFL TV ratings going into the crapper when that flaming idiot Goodell started egging on all the kneeling BS? And did they not notice the ESPN ratings tanking hard when they decided to remake themselves into MSNBC with the occasional sports news thrown in? Nike has never heard 'get woke, go broke'? If they wanted to show heroic sacrifice from a sports star, why didn't they use someone like Pat Tillman? Or others who have raised millions of dollars for various charities? Oh no, not that. Better to build an entire ad campaign around a washed-up crybaby who has done nothing except make a scene during pre-game ceremonies and alienate half of your potential audience. But they did get an endorsement from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and *that's* something they can be proud of. Many years from now, marketing textbooks are going to have chapters devoted to how these companies bankrupted themselves with these idiotic suicide pacts just to please a tiny minority of screaming nimcompoops who don't use their products, anyway. "

8/24-Jane D’oh’s son’s friend-a young Marine was murdered while in Mexico. Friend's name was E.G. Prayers for strength and comfort for E.G.’s family and friends and that murderer or murderers might be held accountable and justice might prevail.

9/4-jjci asks for prayers that daughter-in law (and son) might be able to conceive and have a healthy baby.

9/4 neighbor (formerly neighbor with a telescope) asks for prayers of blessing for he and his children.

Requests for Continued Prayer:

7/31-Pooky’s girl reports that Pooky is sleeping better, not hearing voices when sleeping due to increase in medicine, but is struggling with personal interaction. Prayers for healing and Pooky’s girl asked for prayers that he move up in company so that he doesn’t have to work so many hours which causes stress.

7/31-Hrothgar’s sister is home but very weak and frail. Hrothgar concerned about her living arrangements (is alone) and finances connected to moving to a assisted living facility. Needs rough places made smooth fort that.

****7/31-Slapweseal caring for mom who had stoke and for dad**** Things have gotten "exponentially worse” Please continue the prayers

8/6-Miley-Asks for prayers for focus and strength to help get her mother is retirement home and brother in VA home. Prayers that she “stay sane” and “be her best self.”

8/6 Lurker Phineas has inoperable advanced prostrate cancer, Asked for prayers to bear effects of hormone and radiation treatment, wisdom for doctors, peace for children and that he might live long enough to comment his memory with granddaughters ages 2 &4. Prayers for successful treatment

8/15-Aelfheld’s friend in rehabilitation needs continued prayers for regaining strength and mobility.

8/15-CountryBoy had a heart attack while in doctor’s office and was taken immediately to ICU. Is home now. Needs prayers for strength, healing and recovery.

8/15-SteveOReno- Son has Bipolar 1. Was doing o.k managing illness. but then abused drugs and had an overdose. Son is living with parents now. Please pray that he gets clean, manage bipolar and can keep his job and please "pray for his parents, too.” (Fenelon’s note).

8/17-Laughing in Tx- Has wife has cancer. Will begin cancer treatments soon. Wanted hair cut off so she wouldn’t lose long hair doing treatments. Needs healing

*8/20-Moki’s daughter has had bad white counts and gamma globulin. Is starting school again. Please pray for positive resolution for medical issues, wisdom for doctors, healing, and strength.

9/4-Fox2 reports that brother was back in hospital for additional testing, then back in rehab. May go to stay with other brother this week. Prayers for healing

9/5-Ibguy asked to have co-workers daughter put back on prayer list. Jenna G, a young person in her 20’s or 30s has advanced MS. Prayers for healing

**** New requests for healing, God's presence, strength, peace, and guidance 8/22-NorthernLurker-Prayers for his friend Pat who has surgery for cancer and whose wife died the next day. Cancer of Pat is terminal. Also prayers for his friend Karen who has terminal cancer.

8/23-ElvenPhoenix-Father, J.S. has heart disease, diabetes and end stage renal failure. Also, prayers for Mother to get through this season of her life with strength, grace and dignity. Continued prayers needed for healing from cancer and other issues:

8/27-Buzzion’s friend is attempting to get custody of ex-husband’s sister’s daughter from foster home which no longer wanted her. Friend is dealing with “flaky foster parent and difficulties of family court.” May rough places be made smooth so Buzzion’s friend can bring girl to loving home.

8/31-Northernlurker needs prayer for God’s guidance and wisdom to decide about a possible 3 month mission trip to the Philippines. Also needs God's presence for upcoming Mexico mission trip

8/31-USNtakim-Prayers for healing for he and wife who have chronic medical conditions and pain and difficulty walking . USNTakin has gene that malformed a protein that becomes toxic in cerebellum. Needs successful treatment.

8/31- aisq asks for prayers for son Gabriel, 27, who has rare genetic disease and needs a liver and bone marrow transplant but doctors are reluctant to put him on transplant list because of medical condition.

Please continue to keep in prayers for healing: Sumdumchief, John, Dave@BuffaloRoam, Grannysaurus Rex, Lurking Curate, and Mr Feverhead. All of these posters have significant health concerns, and Mr. Feverhead is trying to work his way though a divorce with best results for children, as well as dealing with cancer treatments.

Job concerns:

9/1 Calm Mentor . Needs job. Very successful in inside and outside sales but hasn't been able to find work in his field. Lives in Northern Georgia. Any leads on jobs can be put in this thread or when he is on the board. ******** For information on his situation and to give donations Gofundme site is https://tinyurl.com/y7zac66o. He thanks everyone for their generosity and prayers.

8/26-Red1c4IRL reports that his wife, DeDe, who works in pharmacy field lost job because of internal, unsupportive office politics, Red asked for prayers for strength and stability in search and that search for job would be short and productive.

Prayers after death-For comfort and strength for family and friends of Bruce’s cousin’s grandson. Grandson had just moved there to pursue PhD at Northwestern. Shot by two people shooting at each other at bus stop.

****Please note; For purposes of length I am trying to keep the prayer list to approximately five weeks. We will continue to pray for earlier concerns. If you would like a situation to be placed back on the prayer list, have any updates or praise reports, please notify me at: FenelonDirection18 (at sign) gmail.com, I cannot be on all the threads. Thanks, and thanks for being prayer warriors!

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

The Morning Report 9/5/18

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Midweek and day 2 of the Democrat staged show trial, flea circus and camera whoring cum soundbite generating opportunity - otherwise known as the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings - is on tap. In case you missed it, the entire thing was a pre-planned and orchestrated attempt by the Democrats to create a scene and somehow delay the inevitable while auditioning and burnishing the credentials of their potential 2020 presidential candidates.

The fiasco included literally dozens of juvenile outbursts from both the Dem Senators on the panel as well as planted confederates (boy, is that word ever pregnant with meaning), in the audience including Sarsour, the Hamas Louse who was carted off and arrested by the cops. Interesting how someone whose "religion" actually enslaves women contrasts with idiots dressed up as Handmaid's Tale wives. The disconnect is positively radiant.

It wasn't until hours later into the late afternoon that the nominee even got to the microphone to give his opening statement. Of course, Kavanaugh came across as polished, prepared, decent, thoughtful, intelligent and most importantly affirmatively avowed his fealty to the Constitution above all else. I sound like a broken record but it's interesting to note that the political movement that is hell bent on destroying our Constitution and Bill of Rights always uses them to rail against us and our nominees. But I digress.

Some of the lowlights were James Hodgkinson mentor Dick Durbin admitting this entire thing is a stunt, phony soldier Dick "Weed" Blumenthal using his time to smear the President as an "unindicted co-conspirator" and most disgusting of all the claim that Kavanaugh's assistant, a Mexican-Jewish woman whose parents survived infamous socialist Adolf Hitler, a white supremacist. Much as I loathe Ben Sasse and Lindsay Graham, they defended the nominee and called out the Dems on their bullshit, while Ace had a great post on Ted Cruz's masterful dismantling of the Dems. Worth a second look at (but do not comment on old threads). Lastly on this, Daniel Horowitz has a good piece over at Conservative Review and while I generally agree with the thrust of his piece vis a vis Grassley and his record on that committee both as chairman and minority member, everything that we had to endure yesterday, when you add it to the embracing of MS-13 butchers by Democrats, and the utter shit-shows of the Aretha Franklin and McCain funerals cannot help but focus the mind come November.

Sliding into politics, another longtime Trotskyite got the axe from a Stalinist in Massachusetts, Fauxcahontas will face off against Geoff Diehl, Cuck Schemer lets the cat out of the bag on impeachment (despite their attempts to keep it dark), Scott Wallace is a big fat hypocrite, Claire McAssKill hates bollards, and Rahm Emanuel will call it quits. We also have linkage to the Mueller persecutions for those keen on that (I don't have it in me to go on about it since what's really the point?).

Internationally, as South Africa circles the drain, PDT is going to chair a UN committee on Iran and may even face off against Ayatollah Rouhani. Also the President says he's all alone when it comes to making our "allies" pay their fair share and satellite missile defense is now a thing.

Closer to home, homunculus Bloomberg and Levi Strauss are teaming up to grab our guns, Tammy Baldwin wants you dead, California forces businesses to add more dames to the boardrooms, Arne Duncan lies about the campus kangaroo courts during his tenure as Ed Sec, a related piece on the spike in student suicides (gee, why's that Arne?), Amazon is considering Washington DC for its HQ (now that is dangerous), interesting piece on the myth of peak oil, and guess what happens when lots of CO2 is in the atmosphere? Hint: it's not quite the greenhouse effect the Climate Change hucksters tell you it is.

From hither and yon, the Village Voice is mortadell, Daniel Greenfield rips Nike and Kaepernick, and Mel Gibson's new movie is going to be huge!

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

Early Bird Edition - Tuesday Overnight Open Thread (9/4/18 )

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

“It’s unfortunate someone would come from out-of-town and put a business like this on one of our busiest intersections. Because the business doesn’t violate any City Code — they make money selling coffee — there isn’t anything ‘immediate’ that government can do.”
Chico, CA Mayor Sean Morgan

Quote II

Today, we need to turn the page. We’re at the end of a long ordeal. But we need to turn toward life — Mollie’s life — because Mollie’s nobody’s victim. Mollie’s my hero…. The Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans….As far as I’m concerned, they’re Iowans with better food.
Rob Tibbetts, father of Mollie.

I'm the father of 3 adult daughters. I just cannot grasp this position.

Quote III

“The social justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action.
Jocelyn Moore

At least dozens of people have received an email from Google informing them that the internet giant responded to a request from the FBI demanding the release of user data, according to several people who claimed to have received the email. The email did not specify whether Google released the requested data to the FBI.

The unusual notice appears to be related to the case of Colton Grubbs, one of the creators of LuminosityLink, a $40 remote access tool (or RAT), that was marketed to hack and control computers remotely. Grubs pleaded guilty last year to creating and distributing the hacking tool to hundreds of people.

After Todd Combs joined Berkshire Hathaway in 2010, he made an early bet on the payment industry through his investment in Visa. The card payment company’s stock has gained about 500% since then. Warren Buffett’s investment conglomerate also holds stock in Mastercard, which has rallied dramatically. This week, Combs, a former hedge fund manager, reportedly bought a stake in the owner of India’s largest digital payments firm, Paytm.

Recently, the College Board, which provides the Advanced Placement Exams that allow high schoolers to earn college credit by successfully passing an exam, purged all history before A.D. 1450 from the exam. Interestingly enough, it was the Left that objected the most because it would exclude most pre-colonial societies.

Kavanaugh's daughters had to be escorted out of the hearings, for either their psychological or physical safety, or both.

So: With that serving as the background for this obvious set-up, Fred Guttenberg, one of the fathers of a slain Parkland student rushes up to Kavanaugh, with one had extended for a handshake and the other hand, who knows?, as security rushes up to intercept him.

Kavanaugh, seeing a stranger rushing towards him in a day marked by shrieking and protesters violently resisting ejection, just looks at him.

Fred Guttenberg then claims victory in his obvious political stunt:

Just walked up to Judge Kavanaugh as morning session ended. Put out my hand to introduce myself as Jaime Guttenberg's dad. He pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away. I guess he did not want to deal with the reality of gun violence.

Mueller Will Accept Written Answers From Trump About Claims of "Russian Collusion;" Appears To Not Be Asking Questions, Either Live or in Written Form, About Alleged "Obstruction of Justice"

—Ace of Spades

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, will accept written answers from President Trump on questions about whether his campaign conspired with Russia's election interference, Mr. Mueller's office told Mr. Trump's lawyers in a letter, two people briefed on it said on Tuesday.

But on another significant aspect of the investigation -- whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry itself -- Mr. Mueller and his investigators understood that issues of executive privilege could complicate their pursuit of a presidential interview and did not ask for written responses on that matter, according to the letter, which was sent on Friday.

Mr. Mueller did not say that he was giving up on an interview altogether, including on questions of obstruction of justice. But the tone of the letter and the fact that the special counsel did not ask for written responses on obstruction prompted some Trump allies to conclude that if an interview takes place, its scope will be more limited than Mr. Trump's legal team initially believed, the people said.

I guess all of their chips are on "Sloppy" Daniels and "hush-money" now.

8000 Retweets for the Left's "An O-K Sign Is a White Power Gang-Sign" Conspiracy Theory, But The Media Won't Castigate the Left for Its Nonstop Conspiracy Theories

—Ace of Spades

Absurd code-conspiracies that would embarrass even the tall, handsome Robert Langdon.

When there's a conspiracy theory on the fringe right, the media covers it endlessly and Otherizes the right, blaming the entirety of the right for a florid belief shared by few.

But when there's a conspiracy theory on the left -- the media does one of three things:

1. Ignores it completely, so as not to embarrass their pink fellow travelers. It just pretends the conspiracy theory doesn't exist at all.

2. Pretends it's a bipartisan conspiracy theory that doesn't implicate either party. They did this with Trutherism, for example.

3. Actually pushes the conspiracy theory themselves, in a Just Askin' Questions kind of way.

So, one woman in attendance rested her hand on her opposite forearm in a way that was not, in fact, even the alleged "White Power" sign. (Her pinkie is not extended but instead curled up -- perhaps she is making a "V Power" sign?)

This gets 8000 retweets -- directly to MSNBC.

So they know about it.

So, will their response be to ignore it or to actively embrace it?

Four years ago I would have said "ignore it," but now, actively embracing it is actually a live option.

From JPS, the ADL addressed this silliness, and determined that this whole "OK sign means White Power" was a hoax/prank created by 4chan. They don't say so explicitly, but they suggest that that image I put up, supposedly from the ACLU, is actually a fake image made up by 4chan as a prank to goof on people.

The "OK" hand gesture hoax originated in February 2017 when an anonymous 4channer announced "Operation O-KKK," telling other members that "we must flood Twitter and other social media websites...claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy." The user even provided a helpful graphic showing how the letters WP (for "white power") could be traced within an "OK" gesture. The originator and others also suggested useful hashtags to help spread the hoax, such as #PowerHandPrivilege and #NotOkay. "Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy," wrote the poster, "We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society ain’t going anywhere near that s***."

Following the cues of the hoax's originator, 4channers created fake e-mail and Twitter accounts and bombarded civil rights organizations, journalists, and others with messages furthering the "OK" hoax. Some of the hoaxers were possibly racists or white supremacists themselves, as parts of 4chan are something of a haven for them and the site itself has been a source of adherents of the alt right segment of the white supremacist movement.

The original launch of "Operation O-KKK" sputtered after a few days and it seemed that the hoax had run its course without spreading too far, but it picked up again in late April and this time was far more successful in spreading across social media--and beyond.

The "OK" hoax was actually just the most recent in a recent series of hoaxes in which 4channers (and members of other, similar places on the Internet such as 8chan and Reddit) have tried to take innocuous items, symbols or gestures and falsely attribute white supremacist meanings to them in order to fool liberals and get them to spread such false messages.

One recent 4chan thread devoted itself to brainstorming the next such hoax. "We need to make some pics that are warning parents about what the dab really means and spread it around," wrote one 4channer (the "dab" is a popular dance move). Another 4channer suggested spreading the notion that clapping was "anti-feminist."

One of the more successful of these recent 4chan hoaxes, also originating in February 2017, was the concept that white supremacists were drinking milk to show “the superiority of the white race” and the “purity of white milk.” One hoaxer trying to convince the Anti-Defamation League "explained" that "they are chugging milk in front of people of color, quoting racist books and phrases and supposed statistics about people of color being lactose intolerant." Even a number of media websites bought into the milk hoax.

So the "OK = WP" thing is a hoax created by 4chan to embarrass the left.

Spoiler alert: the left is not capable of embarrassment.

Back to the original post:

can't wait for the blue checkmarked conspiracy theorists who are today focused on hand signals to decode this image. https://t.co/tZuGMToqTC

And in case you've forgotten, here's CNN's lunatic thug Chris Cuomo claiming that by talking about Mueller's "17 Democrats," he was sending out a signal to Q Anon. Q being the 17th letter of the alphabet.

Then he asks, "So what is this hearing all about?" He says it's all about the Democrats being unhappy about the voters' considered choice in 2016, and wanting to overturn that. But he notes that this was the first election since Eisenhower which occurred with an open Supreme Court seat in play, and thus the next Supreme Court nominee indirectly on the ballot. And he notes that the issue of judicial appointments was vigorously contested by both Trump and Hillary Clinton, the issue being asked about in every single debate, and with both candidates stating the type of judge they would nominate.

Cruz points out that Trump took the "unprecedented" step of publishing a list of his likely Supreme Court picks. He implies without directly stating that Kavanaugh was on this list. (Kavanaugh was in fact on the short list.)

Therefore, Cruz concludes, Kavanaugh has something he calls "super-legitimacy" as a Supreme Court nominee, as the voters were already told that he might well be a Supreme Court choice by Trump and chose to elect Trump. Cruz calls this a de facto "referendum" on the acceptability of Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice.

Finally, Cruz points out that progressives use the courts to win policy fights they cannot win at the ballot, and points out that America has been debating big policy issues that the left would like to win via the courts. And in the face of that, they chose Trump, who promised to appoint constitutionalists. He specifically notes that every Democrat Senator voted to gut the First Amendment, and that many Democrat Senators voted to repeal the Religious Freedom Act signed into law by Bill Clinton, and that almost every Democrat wants to effectively repeal the Second Amendment.

Huge debates about which virtually every voter was aware -- and every voter was aware what kind of candidates each nominee would select. So again, Cruz concludes, the Democrats are simply trying to undo the will of the American people.

Nike Uses Colin Kaepernik as a Spokesman, Claiming That Kaepernik "Sacrificed Everything" For His Beliefs

—Ace of Spades

But we can't criticize them. They're a Holy Corporation. Whenever a corporation takes action to limit a conservative's speech, they all bleat, "Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences."

But when a conservative even criticizes corporate speech, the Corporate Wing of the Uniparty tells us that corporate freedom of speech should mean freedom from consequences, and you're an Anti-American thug if you even attempt criticism or social pressure.

Jon Kyl to Be Appointed to Replace John McCain

—Ace of Spades

Glad the governor finally announced this. There is major business in front of the Senate and Arizona has already been without a Senator for weeks. (It's been without both Senators for a while, too, given that Flake has been vacationing endlessly in Africa. And it's been without a Republican Senator for years and years.)

The Morning Rant: J.V. Edition

—CBD

The complete and total stupidity, arrogance, obtuseness and ignorance of most of our senators is a national disgrace. Most august deliberative body my ass! Granted, Murphy is a particularly egregious example of the species Senatorum retardi democraticus, but still, how about some low-level understanding of economic terms and principles? I honestly don't know what the hell he is trying to say here. Is he suggesting that companies should hire additional workers at higher wages to increase demand for their products? Because...um...that's really dumb.

The best strategy for job creation is to pay a decent living wage to every worker in America. Jobs don’t magically appear. They respond to consumer demand, and good wages create demand. That’s what I’m thinking about on Labor Day.

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

The Morning Report 9/4/18

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Back to work this Tuesday as we leave summer behind and head into the homestretch towards the crucial 2018 Midterms. And today also marks the start of the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh to take his place as an associate justice on the Supreme Court. Unless something from way out of left field - literally and figuratively - is dragged into the committee room by the Dems or the press (BIRM), then it's more than likely that he will be confirmed. But the Dems are going to ramp up the smear machine to go after him, the President and the GOP to rile up their base for the elections. Expect the usual gaggle of goniffs, perverts, miscreants and scum impersonating Senators to primp, pose and emit vomitus in front of the cameras and microphones to satisfy the droogs that pull the levers for them.

That said, I expect at least one or perhaps two Democrats, Joe's Man-Chin and/or Heidi Scheiss-cramp to vote "yes" since both of them are in serious trouble this November. And all things considered I think that that can also be considered a somewhat good omen going into November, at least insofar as preserving the majority in the Senate. That said, along with immigration and amnesty, the courts are also a major factor in putting Donald Trump into the Oval Office in 2016. The base knows it as do most average Americans who have been turned off by the antics of Kennedy and Roberts, to say nothing of the hacks-in-black Marxists, during the Obama Reign-of-Error as well as that of Hawaiian Justice Punchy Macadamia Leper Colony. Coupled with all of the other Leftist meshugas and insanity, this cannot help but energize enthusiasm to keep Congress from tipping over. Analysis from Legal Insurrection's William Jacobson and others on offer for your perusal.

The other factor of course is immigration and Amnesty. On the down side, North Carolina still has many illegal aliens on their voter rolls courtesy of Motor Voter. On the plus side, Texas is again leading the way on denying foreigners access and money for our schools, a massive bust of illegal alien MS-13 subhuman animals in California and a pudding-dippingly good report about huge numbers of illegals opting out of getting bennies for fear of being caught and deported. That in and of itself is a wall that costs nothing, saves money, builds itself and is impenetrable. Thank you, Mr. President. More, please!

As we move on to politics, despite all of the above, as Nancy Palsi's stuffs her waxy, botulinum-lined maw with chopped liver on a Ritz at a Hamptons fundraiser, she's fantasizing about getting her bony claws on that speaker's gavel and it appears that the Dems actually have an agenda all lined up in the event. Meh, they've had the same agenda for decades already. Meanwhile, NeverTrumpers gotta NeverTrump, PDT rips Sessionszzz and taunts Kerry, and Daniel Greenfield on the Democrat-Socialists' Joo-Hate problem. Meh, if it's bust-out and proud as we saw at the 2012 convention and with the likes of Loopy Ocasio-Fiasco and Keith "X" among others, it's not a problem in their eyes.

In first amendment fakery and censorship, Andrew Breitbart's father-in-law Orson Bean lays down some truth, how the MFM faked the Flint lead water crisis because of Hillary, the SPLC needs to be eradicated from the face of the Earth, the media and the Pope Francis church sex abuse scandal, and Mark Mullah-berg and Farsi-book follies.

Domestically, some alarming news about the national debt, the Secret Service is warning about massive credit card fraud at the gas pump, with a farm bill like this, Lisa Douglas can move back to Park Avenue "dahlink," parents have had it up to here (points at Adam's apple) with drag-queen perverts reading stories to children, and a great piece about how a Massachusetts state legislator derailed the LGBT sickos by using their own logic to defeat multi-gender drivers licenses. I call it mental jiu-jitsu, insofar taking a position as far to the left of their's as possible to force them to take a more conservative stance. Thing of beauty if done well.

In Dr. Zaius pseudo-science news, what it would cost in human terms to attempt to lower the Earth's temperature by fractions of a degree and in their zeal to destroy Monsanto, the fundamentalists are causing panic over a chemical used in breakfast cereal.

From hither and yon, there's a backlash brewing against Nike for promoting anti-American racialist crackpot, and football scrub, Colin Kaepernick, Buzz Aldrin is as feisty as ever and incensed over the omission of the US flag from some Apollo 11 flick, a former actor from the "Cosby" show is leading a normal life and in doing so is setting an example that is of course all but ignored by the media, and finally, just as we have the myth about Democrats and black America we have the myth about Democrats and women's suffrage. Wham-bam thank you ma'am. And I don't mean Barbara Boxer.

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

Laboring Monday Overnight Open Thread (9/3/18 )

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

(Don't worry about the chocolate stains on your pants)

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The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

If you're a convenience store owner in, say, Ferguson, Missouri, your low-skilled service jobs are the only labor on offer, and, for your pains, you get burned and looted by the dependent class while your 911 calls go unanswered by the governing class, both of which you fund.
Mark Steyn

Quote II

This is total lunacy. And a disservice at a time when our people need reminders of what we can achieve when we work together. The American people paid for that mission,on rockets built by Americans,with American technology & carrying American astronauts. It wasn’t a UN mission.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

At the end of Dirty Dancing, Patrick Swayze returns to the resort that fired him so he can dance with Jennifer Grey in an iconic performance that said, “I’m not going quietly.” Today, Barnes & Noble’s former CEO took the stage for his own final solo.

After fewer than 15 months at the helm of the US bookseller, Demos Parneros was unceremoniously fired as Barnes & Noble’s CEO in July. B&N cited “violations of the Company’s policies,” without specifying further, and did not offer Parneros severance.

Artificial intelligence: it will replace us all one day! Eventually, I won’t have to deal with Jalopnik staffers and their problems, until I too am replaced by a bot that understands headlines and spreadsheets and can field endless complaints. Until then, we’ll have to settle for bots writing Craigslist ads, and that is fine because their work is delightfully bonkers.

It may have been Dellacroce’s influence that made Gotti such an unusual figure in modern organized crime. Gotti often seemed like a figure from another era, and with a mentor like Aniello Dellacroce, it’s not hard to imagine why. With Dellacroce’s death and Gotti’s conviction, that era of the Mafia seemed to have finally drawn to a close.

Just over five months ago, authorities say officer Paul Pappas clocked in for the evening shift, climbed in his unmarked patrol car and drove to New Brunswick to slash his ex-girlfriend's car tire.

The brazen, bizarre incident -- in which the 43-year-old cop, in full uniform, was found underneath his ex's car cutting the woman's tire -- was captured on a nearby security camera, leading to his arrest, according to the police report obtained by NJ Advance Media.

That arrest, on a minor municipal violation, has since sparked a multi-pronged criminal investigation into the Edison Police Department. And now, a police force well-known for its public scandals is facing allegations of steroid use, illegally running license plates and paying officers for no-show off-duty jobs.

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The ONT Musical Interlude

No history lesson tonight. Just working songs.

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I've been lucky perhaps even blessed. I've never had a really terrible boss. What about you?

This semester, the University of Kansas will be hosting a “feminist parenting group.” The group will explore “strategies for raising intersectional feminist children” and “empower parents and caregivers to raise children who challenge gender stereotypes and kyriarchy.” (Since kyriarchy isn’t a word, I looked it up on Everyday Feminism, where they use lots of made-up words, and found this definition: “Kyriarchy is best theorized as a complex pyramidal system of intersecting multiplicative social structures of superordination and subordination, of ruling and oppression.” Yeah, makes total sense now.) The group will meet in person three times throughout the fall and continue to discuss this important topic via a Facebook group indefinitely.

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Feel like threatening someone? Be careful or you could end up with a posthumous Genius Award. h/t Mike Hammer

An Uber driver fatally shot a man who threatened him about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday on Dundee Road in Winter Haven, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

The Guardian: Meet the Teens Who Refuse to Use Social Media

—Ace of Spades

I don't know if this is a real trend story, or one of those #FakeNews trend stories the media loves to run.

But I'm hopeful.

For 17-year-old Mary Amanuel, from London, it happened in Tesco. "We were in year 7,” she remembers, "and my friend had made an Instagram account. As we were buying stuff, she was counting the amounts of likes she’d got on a post. 'Oooh, 40 likes. 42 likes.' I just thought: 'This is ridiculous.'"

Isabelle, an 18-year-old student from Bedfordshire who doesn’t want to disclose her surname, turned against social media when her classmates became zombified. "Everyone switched off from conversation. It became: 'Can I have your number to text you?' Something got lost in terms of speaking face to face. And I thought: 'I don’t really want to be swept up in that.'"

Smarter than I was/am, I'll admit.

It is widely believed that young people are hopelessly devoted to social media. Teenagers, according to this stereotype, tweet, gram, Snap and scroll. But for every young person hunched over a screen, there are others for whom social media no longer holds such an allure. These teens are turning their backs on the technology -- and there are more of them than you might think.

While many of us have been engrossed in the Instagram lives of our co-workers and peers, a backlash among young people has been quietly boiling. One 2017 survey of British schoolchildren found that 63% would be happy if social media had never been invented. Another survey of 9,000 internet users from the research firm Ampere Analysis found that people aged 18-24 had significantly changed their attitudes towards social media in the past two years. Whereas 66% of this demographic agreed with the statement "social media is important to me" in 2016, only 57% make this claim in 2018. As young people increasingly reject social media, older generations increasingly embrace it: among the 45-plus age bracket, the proportion who value social media has increased from 23% to 28% in the past year, according to Ampere's data.

This is part of a wider trend. According to a study by US marketing firm Hill Holliday of Generation Z -- people born after 1995 --half of those surveyed stated they had quit or were considering quitting at least one social media platform. When it comes to Gen Z's relationship to social media, "significant cracks are beginning to show", says the firm's Lesley Bielby.

She believes we will definitely see an increase in younger people quitting or substantially reducing their use. "And as younger Gen Zers notice this behaviour among their older siblings and friends, they too will start to dial down their use of social media."

And maybe then the 55-year-olds on Twitter pretending to be 15-year-olds will start thinking that maybe Twitter isn't making them appear young and hip any longer.

Trump Cancels Planned Pay-Raises for Civilian Federal Layabouts

—Ace of Spades

President Trump announced Thursday that he was canceling a pay raise due to most civilian federal employees in January, citing budgetary reasons.

In a letter to congressional leaders, the president wrote that locality pay increases would cost $25 billion. Those increases would come on top of a 2.1 percent across-the-board increase for most civilian employees.

"We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases," Trump wrote before announcing that for 2019, "both across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases will be set at zero."

I wish we could have our go-along-to-get-along liberal "Republican" thought-leaders back. They never did a damn thing to advance the ball, but they sure were polite while not doing anything.

FBI Refuses to Confirm or Deny That the ICIG Warned that Clinton's Server Had Been Hacked

—Ace of Spades

The FBI has claimed they found no evidence, themselves, of "compromise" of Clinton's servers.

But they won't say whether or not the Intelligence Community Inspector General warned them that they had found such evidence.

The FBI won't disclose whether it met with senior officials of the Intelligence Community Inspector General.

TheDCNF confirmed that the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three separate occasions to warn the FBI of an "anomaly" they found 30,000 in-bound and outgoing emails.

The anomaly showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a "courtesy copy" to a third party.

The FBI refuses to disclose whether or not it met with senior members of the Intelligence Community Inspector General on the subject of foreign intrusion of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private server.

An FBI spokeswoman refused to confirm if Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) officials -- including Frank Rucker, its chief investigator -- briefed top bureau officials about evidence of penetration of Clinton’s private server by a Chinese government intelligence operation. "We have no comment," she told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Earlier Wednesday, an FBI spokesman released what appeared to be a categorical statement about the Clinton server: "The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised," the FBI stated.

News leaked Wednesday that the Education Department plans to bring campus sexual misconduct policies in line with basic principles of fairness and due process, and many progressive feminists are fuming.

But these criticisms of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are hard to take seriously, since so many of them contain very basic errors about the administration's revised guidance relating to Title IX, the federal statute that mandates sex and gender equality in education.

As reported earlier by The New York Times, and confirmed independently by Reason, the Education Department plans to abandon several controversial Obama-era policies that deprived accused students of the ability to meaningfully defend themselves in sexual misconduct disputes. DeVos would no longer force colleges to adjudicate all accusations of which they become aware, permit more flexibility, mandate cross-examination during hearings, and adopt a definition of sexual harassment in line with Supreme Court precedent.

The new guidance is still in draft mode, and will have to undergo a period of public notice and comment before it takes effect. If adopted, the proposals "will go a long way towards restoring meaningful due process protections to the campus justice system, to the ultimate benefit of students--both accuser and accused," according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's Robert Shibley.

Economy Grew 4.2% in 2nd Quarter

—Ace of Spades

he U.S. economy grew at a strong 4.2 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, the best showing in nearly four years, as growth stayed on track to produce its strongest full-year gain in more than a decade.

...

Economists expect growth to slow to a still solid 3 percent annual rate the rest of the year, resulting in full-year growth of 3 percent for 2018. It would be the best performance since 2005, two years before the Great Recession began.

The 4.2 percent annual growth that the government estimated for last quarter is the strongest such figure since a 4.3 percent annual gain in the third quarter of 2014. The expectation of 3 percent growth for 2018 as a whole would be up from gains of 1.6 percent in 2016 and 2.2 percent last year.

The Morning Rant

—OregonMuse

"I guess we had two national funerals last Friday, John McCain's and did you morons see the photos of creepy Bill Clinton leering at Ariana Grande during her performance at the service for Aretha Franklin? Holy crap, it's like he's given up even trying to hide it any more. He's become so disgusting and degenerate, I'm surprised he didn't go up there and start humping her leg like a dog. And you gotta feel sorry for Ariana because then some clerical guy went all Joe Biden on her. But then he apologized for it afterwards, which actually puts him one up on the priapic Bill Clinton because it means he still has the remnants of a sense of shame. Meanwhile, a number of MSM stories noted, in their best censorious 'tut tut' style, that Donald Trump was conspicuously absent from McCain's funeral because he was off playing golf somewhere, and then, not until a paragraph buried deep in the story do they tell you that he was purposely disinvited from attending. So what was he supposed to, spend the weekend in his room quietly weeping by himself? Oh, and getting back to the Franklin funeral, you might not have heard that the Rev. Jasper Williams, who delivered the eulogy, claimed that 'black lives don't matter' if they don't respect themselves. His condemnation of the single-parenting culture prevalent in black communities was roundly condemned by those who want African Americans to remain dysfunctional, uneducated, and poor."

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

The Morning Report 9/3/18

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Great to be back in the big chair. First, big thanks to Misanthropic Humanitarian for covering whilst I was away. Sefton and Olga Volga (the Brick Kremlin) spent a fantastic week in Buenos Aires. A truly amazing city that I hope you all get to visit. We returned yesterday and I'm dragging a bit so this will be brief and late, as you may well have noticed.

As Labor Day 2018 heralds the unofficial end of summer, it also brings with it the homestretch until the Midterm elections. I think it's safe to say that the GOP will probably keep its majority in the Senate, if not expand on it, but the big question is still going to be the House. The conventional wisdom is that the party in power always loses the majority in the Legislature in a Midterm election, the big exception being that of Dubya back in 2002 when the Democrats turned the memorial of Paul Wellstone into an opportunity to smear Republicans, America, our nascent war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan and continue to pimp for a socialist revolution. The backlash against them actually added seats to the GOP. And now, 16 years later, with Trump in office, an economy that is booming to say the least, and a Democrat-Socialist party and Media that continues to embrace America's enemies, moral depravity, open borders and the concomitant dissolution of our society, it would make zero sense for the average American voter to not see this and more importantly for the base that elected PDT in the first place to not ensure his survival in the Oval Office and prevent an impeachment attempt and sabotaging of the agenda by endless committee investigations for the next two years.

But the Dems are nothing if not predictable. Ignoring the first rule of holes, the leading lights on the Left took the occasion of the widely publicized funerals of John McCain and Aretha Franklin to blast the President, his agenda and his supporters. Louis Farrakhan's prominent attendance at the Franklin service did not deter the Clintons from attending. Let's see how well that plays in Peoria. Along with the embrace of MS-13 animals as well as the silencing and otherization of the still large majority of Americans who oppose it, this may all combine to turn into a Paul Wellstone memorial of massive proportions, please G-d. I think Howard Dean calling President Trump mentally ill just perfectly illustrates this, and so many things.

On the Amnesty front, as the family of Mollie Tibbetts is proving itself to be utterly tone deaf as to who and what killed their daughter, we have yet further proof in the form of a subhuman MS-13 animal breaking into Brooklyn apartment and raping an 11-year-old girl. Well at least it was here legally (yay! green card!). But of course the Washington "National Laughingstock" Post tells us that its all our fault for not lying back and enjoying it.

In politics, Trump's "lying Ted" Tweets are going to be used as political fodder in Texas in a race that, allegedly, closer than it should be. Texas morons please weigh in on that. Meanwhile, an interesting analysis of a potential upset in Rhode Island against Sheldon Whorehouse, Obama is going to hit the campaign and lend the shit-Midas touch to the Dems and a good piece going into more detail about the politicization of the McCain and Franklin funerals. We also have the Kavanaugh hearings beginning tomorrow IIRC and I don't expect the Democrats to tone things down at all, which again will not endear them to the public at large. They don't have the votes to stop him thanks to Harry Reid, whom I understand is a personal adviser to Pope Francis, but they will nevertheless have to whore for the cameras to appease the base and try to Bork him. Speaking of which, quite a good essay on that travesty.

Internationally, it looks as if Cuba used a microwave weapon against our embassy staff in Havana (in my book that does constitute an act of war), will defunding the Palestinians make a difference (no), Sweden is poised to move to the right for whatever good it will do, and the postponement of the Aramco IPO and what the portends for Saudi's reform-minded prince.

From hither and yon, thankfully, the FBI has arrested the New Mexico jihadis on gun and conspiracy charges after a judge dismissed the child abuse charges. Since New Mexico is actually a part of Hawaii's jurisdiction, I expect them to be freed yet again (sarc), an explosive Ivy League study showing that transgenderism is a dangerous farce and mass child abuse is being quashed, the LA Times admits PDT was right about whacko environmentalism as the cause of the California wildfires and how the pederasty scandal within the Catholic Church could destroy it.

Happy Labor Day.

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

Gun Thread [Weasel]

—Open Blogger

John Moses Browning

Designed by John M Browning, the M1911 and 1911A1 chambered in .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) served as the country's standard-issue sidearm for 75 years. As with the .38 Special, the need for a larger and more effective defensive cartridge became evident from combat experience gained during action in the Phillipines. Military testing began around 1906 and continued until the Colt - a magazine fed, single action semi-automatic pistol designed by Browning - was formally adopted in 1911. The autoloader design, based on the short recoil principle of operation, has been universally acknowledged for its durability, simplicity and reliability.

Popular bullet weights are 185gr and 230gr, and like all straight walled cartridges, reloading the .45 ACP is fun and generally economical. As a matter of preference I tend to stay away from the upper end of speed and pressure curves, and with this cartridge I look for velocities around 800fps using W231, Bullseye, or a number of other fast burning powders.

Over the years, countless variants of the same basic design have been produced and remain very popular among shooters today. Millions were produced under military contract before being replaced by the Beretta M9 in 1985 in an effort to standardize ammunition among NATO allies. Production included several other notable wartime manufacturers, including Remington Rand, Ithaca Gun Co., Union Switch and Signal, and Singer.

Volumes have been written about the 1911, the quintessential military sidearm and the standard against which all other autoloading pistols are measured. The example pictured above, one of the last produced by Remington Rand in 1945, has been through the arsenal process at least once and remains a fine shooter to this day.

Based on the same design is this pre-70 series Colt 1911 National Match. Made of premium components and designed for the civilian competition market, the NM designation predates the Colt Gold Cup models marketed later. This pistol shipped to the John Jovino gun shop in New York City in 1964. It is extremely accurate and makes even this shooter look good.

From the collection of Inyo Ranger comes this M44 Mossberg, the Civilian model of an armed forces .22 training rifle. In a great example of a family's firearms being passed through the generations, he writes:

"My sons and I call it "Grandad" since it was given to my Father by his Father in '44. My Father used a similar rifle while taking basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Base in '47. It is the first firearm I ever shot."

Great story and the rifle is in remarkable condition! Congratulations and thanks for sharing, Inyo Ranger!

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If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are welcome! Email: guns at happyplacearsenal dot com

Food Thread: Shut Up And Go Back To Your un-Air-Conditioned Hovel And Eat Your Animal Feed While I enjoy Real Food

—CBD

The pushback against the food fascists is a welcome thing. Most people have an aversion to bland, tasteless food, so it is an easy thing to say to oneself..."Self, I like to eat. Why are these people ruining one of the great pleasures of life?"

And the posters are funny, which makes it even better, because food fascists are pinch-faced scolds without a humorous bone in their scrawny bodies.

This will be an abbreviated installment, because the dog ate my homework. So talk amongst yourselves about whatever the hell you have been eating and cooking. I'll throw some links and a few (hopefully) pithy comments and call it a day. Yeah, yeah...the Platinum membership people will get the usual content.

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I know that's sort of gross, and I have written about this before, but it made me laugh, mostly because Chipotle is plunging headlong into their new food safety plans without any evidence that it is working, and some startling evidence that they don't have a clue what they are doing. When I go to a commercial food establishment, my expectation is that they have robust processes in place and enforced so that I DON"T GET SICK! That's not too complicated. When I am unsure of the business' dedication to my health, I am quite careful about what I order. So no raw vegetables, no raw or undercooked foods, etc. And when I observe poor food safety technique, like the barista who sneezed into her hand then continued to make the Espresso or cappuccino or whatever, I just walk out.

I had a couple of foods recently that were incredible expressions of the idea that great cuisine is not complicated. A piece of crispy pork belly that had salt and pepper and nothing else on it, but it was perfectly cooked...a rich balance of succulent meat and soft fat, with a cracklingly crisp exterior. Perfection, and damn it! I should be able to make it, but I haven't yet.

I think I'll start with this simple recipe and just modify it until I get the desired result. Crispy Pork Belly

New potatoes that were parboiled then finished on low heat in a pan with lots of butter. Wow...who knew that plain potatoes could taste so good? The key is the quality of the potatoes and the gentleness of the cooking process. These were not crispy, or even browned. But the intensity of the potato flavor was a revelation.

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I thought I posted this before, but my cursory search didn't turn up anything. Regardless, I make some variation of it every now and then, and it is both fun and delicious. Not a bad combination.

Set a large (non-stick is best) skillet over medium heat and add 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Add sliced onions and cook over medium heat until they are tender and brown all over (10-20 minutes).

Using a mandolin (or sharp knife), finely slice the potatoes into rounds (you can place them in a bowl with a wet towel over the top to stop them from going brown while you work). Place the potatoes into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. When ready, drain the potatoes, add the onions and toss to combine without breaking potatoes.

Add some extra-virgin olive oil to the pan and add the potato and onion mixture to the pan, making sure the potatoes are flat and the onions are evenly distributed. Top with the diced butter.

Cover the potatoes with the parchment paper and press down. Drizzle some extra-virgin olive oil over the top so it doesn’t burn and brush it across the paper.

Place the pan over a medium-high flame and cook for 5 minutes, until the bottom is crisped a bit.

Place the pan into the oven on the top rack and bake for about 45 minutes. When done remove from oven and if necessary run a knife around the edge to separate from the pan. Place a large plate on top of the sauté pan and flip. Remove the sauté pan. Sprinkle with Gruyere and parsley. Allow to cool slightly before cutting into slices.

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Food and cooking tips, Haggis, Henry Big Boys in .357, Scotch Eggs, thick and fluffy pita and good tomatoes that aren't square, pale pink and covered with Mestizo E.coli:
cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com. Any advocacy of French Toast with syrup will result in disciplinary action up to and including being
nuked from orbit.

Washington Post: Enforcing the law is bad when we say it is, and we are going to quote a lot of Mysterious Gypsy Women and you must totally believe everything they say without question.

—CBD

Here is a complete fisking of a Washington Post article by commenter "2nd Amendment Texan,” Who happens to be an ex passport-fraud investigator. He thinks that the WaPo is full of shit. I know...crazy idea! But hear him out. It's long, but worth a read.

►Oh, so they are just randomly taking people who happen to be living near the US border and denying their passport applications? Because they just happen to live near there. Sure, Washington Post, whatever you say.

On paper, he’s a devoted U.S. citizen. His official American birth certificate shows he was delivered by a midwife in Brownsville, at the southern tip of Texas. He spent his life wearing American uniforms: three years as a private in the Army, then as a cadet in the Border Patrol and now as a state prison guard.

► Wait, what? He was a cadet in the Border Patrol? Just a cadet? What would prompt a cadet in the Border Patrol to up and quit to be a prison guard? I am confident if the reason was he blew out his knee, the reporter would have mentioned it. More likely he sexually harassed someone, got caught cheating, or was otherwise found to be unsuitable to carry a badge and gun. These are the typical reasons cadets are kicked out of law enforcement academies. The article just glosses over this, because of course they do.

But when Juan, 40, applied to renew his U.S. passport this year, the government’s response floored him. In a letter, the State Department said it didn’t believe he was an American citizen.

►Does Juan not have a last name?

As he would later learn, Juan is one of a growing number of people whose official birth records show they were born in the United States but who are now being denied passports — their citizenship suddenly thrown into question.

► Not “now being denied passports”. Always. This has been going on since at least the Clinton Administration. As a former passport fraud investigator, let me outline here what typically happens:

Corrupt Dr (or much more commonly, midwife) goes to a Mexican border town *in Mexico* and says for a nice cash bribe I will lyingly claim I delivered your newborn baby in the US. A deal is struck and the midwife files the paperwork and the parents get a US birth certificate for that child. Years later the midwife or doctor is caught, and people with that criminal’s name on the birth certificates are asked for more information to support that they were born in the US since that the birth certificate origins are suspect. No doubt due to racism and all of the admitted lies and payoffs and crimes committed by that midwife, but mainly all of the admitted lies and payoffs and crimes committed by that midwife. For most people that were born in the US, they are able to cobble together such records and they get a passport. But what about those people that don’t have it due to poor record keeping or…they were really not born in the United States?

The Trump administration is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Hispanics along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates since they were babies, and it is undertaking a widespread crackdown.

►Note the thrown in about “Hispanics” as if this happens on our northern border but the US only cares about hurting Hispanics. Ridiculous.

In a statement, the State Department said that it “has not changed policy or practice regarding the adjudication of passport applications,” adding that “the U.S.-Mexico border region happens to be an area of the country where there has been a significant incidence of citizenship fraud.”

But cases identified by The Washington Post and interviews with immigration attorneys suggest a dramatic shift in both passport issuance and immigration enforcement.

►In other words, cases identified by activist immigration attorneys and interviews with activists immigration attorneys suggest… You know, it is amazing that the Washington Post can find sources in every nook in the world but can’t seem to find a single retired passport adjudicator or investigator to talk to about this problem that has literally gone on for decades. Funny how that gap always is around, and always in one direction.

In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings. In others, they are stuck in Mexico, their passports suddenly revoked when they tried to reenter the United States.

►Stuck in Mexico? You mean the place they were born?

As the Trump administration attempts to reduce both legal and illegal immigration, the government’s treatment of passport applicants in South Texas shows how U.S. citizens are increasingly being swept up by immigration enforcement agencies.

►This is a lie. They are not targeting applicants who live in South Texas. They are asking for more information of *ANY* applicant anywhere in the world that has a US birth certificate featuring the names of certain midwives and physicians that are known to have taken bribes to fraudulently files birth certificates. If you have a birth certificate from Brownsville with one of those midwives who is an admitted liar and are applying for a passport from deep red South Carolina you are going to be getting the same requests for further documentation. If you were born in a hospital in Ames, Iowa but apply from, say, Brownsville you are not going to get such requests.

Juan said he was infuriated by the government’s response. “I served my country. I fought for my country,” he said, speaking on the condition that his last name not be used so that he wouldn’t be targeted by immigration enforcement.

►We still don’t know who Juan is, so I am going to use David Burge’s idea and simply refer to him a Mysterious Gypsy Woman. Did he serve in the Army? What did he do there? Was he a war hero or did he get a dishonorable discharge? We can’t know.

The government alleges that from the 1950s through the 1990s, some midwives and physicians along the Texas-Mexico border provided U.S. birth certificates to babies who were actually born in Mexico. In a series of federal court cases in the 1990s, several birth attendants admitted to providing fraudulent documents.

►The government didn’t allege, the government proved. Keep saying that provable facts are just allegations, media. No way that will make people lose faith in your ability to be truthful.

Based on those suspicions, the State Department during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations denied passports to people who were delivered by midwives in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. The use of midwives is a long-standing tradition in the region, in part because of the cost of hospital care. The same midwives who provided fraudulent birth certificates also delivered thousands of babies legally in the United States. It has proved nearly impossible to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate documents, all of them officially issued by the state of Texas decades ago.

►Well, yes, that muddling is exactly why the State Department doesn’t just flat out deny people with sketchy birth certificates. They ask for more documentation.

A 2009 government settlement in a case litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union seemed to have mostly put an end to the passport denials. Attorneys reported that the number of denials declined during the rest of the Obama administration, and the government settled promptly when people filed complaints after being denied passports.

►I am sure there is no way the super-serious, rule-of-law, by-the-book Obama Administration would settle a suit with their buddies in the ACLU that wasn’t on the up and up. Nope, not those guys. Straight shooters, all of them.

But under President Trump, the passport denials and revocations appear to be surging, becoming part of a broader interrogation into the citizenship of people who have lived, voted and worked in the United States for their entire lives. “We’re seeing these kind of cases skyrocketing,” said Jennifer Correro, an attorney in Houston who is defending dozens of people who have been denied passports.

►Well, yes, when a law isn’t enforced for 8 years and then is enforced there will be a “surge” of enforcement. You know, I think all journalism degrees should require two statistics classes.

In its statement, the State Department said that applicants “who have birth certificates filed by a midwife or other birth attendant suspected of having engaged in fraudulent activities, as well as applicants who have both a U.S. and foreign birth certificate, are asked to provide additional documentation establishing they were born in the United States.”
“Individuals who are unable to demonstrate that they were born in the United States are denied issuance of a passport,” the statement said.

When Juan, the former soldier, received a letter from the State Department telling him it wasn’t convinced that he was a U.S. citizen, it requested a range of obscure documents — evidence of his mother’s prenatal care, his baptismal certificate, rental agreements from when he was a baby. He managed to find some of those documents but weeks later received another denial. In a letter, the government said the information “did not establish your birth in the United States.” “I thought to myself, you know, I’m going to have to seek legal help,” said Juan, who earns $13 an hour as a prison guard and expects to pay several thousand dollars in legal fees.

►So Mysterious Gypsy Woman doesn’t have a baptism certificate or he doesn’t have a baptism certificate from a church in the United States? See what they did there? Nice sleight of hand, Washington Post. Someone could go digging and find out if he has a baptismal certificate in churches near where he claimed to have been born, but that would take digging and effort. If there was just a job that existed for people who would do such digging and then write about what they found…

In a case last August, a 35-year-old Texas man with a U.S. passport was interrogated while crossing back into Texas from Mexico with his son at the ¬McAllen-Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge, connecting Reynosa, Mexico, to McAllen, Tex. His passport was taken from him, and Customs and Border Protection agents told him to admit that he was born in Mexico, according to documents later filed in federal court. He refused and was sent to the Los Fresnos Detention Center and entered into deportation proceedings. He was released three days later, but the government scheduled a deportation hearing for him in 2019. His passport, which had been issued in 2008, was revoked.

►So Mysterious Gypsy Woman Who Doesn’t Even Have a First Name claims something that he filed in federal court makes what he is saying true. None of what Mysterious Gypsy Woman Who Doesn’t Even Have a First Name asserts rings even remotely true, and I remain confident that the Washington Post is adamant that it be looked into no further.

Attorneys say these cases, where the government’s doubts about an official birth certificate lead to immigration detention, are increasingly common. “I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention center — U.S. citizens,” said Jaime Diez, an attorney in Brownsville.

►Amazing how these crack Washington Post reporters take the word of the Mysterious Gypsy Women’s attorneys at face value with zero followups. Way to swing for the credibility fences, Washington Post.

Diez represents dozens of U.S. citizens who were denied their passports or had their passports suddenly revoked. Among them are soldiers and Border Patrol agents. In some cases, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrived at his clients’ homes without notice and taken passports away.

►Why does it matter if the Mysterious Gypsy Women are soldiers? After all, the Washington Post has spent the last several years implying 24/7 that pretty much every single DREAMer is serving in the military, and they aren’t citizens by the media’s own acknowledgment. And one must be a US Citizen to be a US Border Patrol agent, so not being one is a pretty big deal.

The State Department says that even though it may deny someone a passport, that does not necessarily mean that the individual will be deported. But it leaves them in a legal limbo, with one arm of the U.S. government claiming they are not an American and the prospect that immigration agents could follow up on their case. It’s difficult to know where the crackdown fits into the Trump administration’s broader efforts to reduce legal and illegal immigration. Over the past year, it has thrown legal permanent residents out of the military and formed a denaturalization task force that tries to identify people who might have lied on decades-old citizenship applications.

►The military has a ton of greencard holders serving, and none of them are thrown out of the military just because they are still greencard holders as they were the day they joined. Sounds like a lie, plain and simple. You know someone who probably lied on their decades-old citizenship certificate? That 95-year-old Nazi guard that was just deported.

Now, the administration appears to be taking aim at a broad group of Americans along the stretch of the border where Trump has promised to build his wall, where he directed the deployment of National Guardsmen, and where the majority of cases in which children were separated from their parents during the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy occurred.

►This section is just so dumb. Again, it is a lie to say that the government is taking aim at anyone, they are not. Also, where they live is not relevant, who claimed they delivered them at birth is the key question. I am not sure what the point of the rest of the paragraph is other than to notate that border enforcement typically is concentrated on the border, which any six year old could understand.

The State Department would not say how many passports it has denied to people along the border because of concerns about fraudulent birth certificates. The government has also refused to provide a list of midwives whom it considers to be suspicious. Lawyers along the border say that it isn’t just those delivered by midwives who are being denied.

Babies delivered by Jorge Treviño, one of the regions most well-known gynecologists, are also being denied. When he died in 2015, the McAllen Monitor wrote in his obituary that Treviño had delivered 15,000 babies.

It’s unclear why babies delivered by Treviño are being targeted, and the State Department did not comment on individual birth attendants. Diez, the attorney, said the government has an affidavit from an unnamed Mexican doctor who said that Treviño’s office provided at least one fraudulent birth certificate for a child born in Mexico. One of the midwives who was accused of providing fraudulent birth certificates in the 1990s admitted in an interview that in two cases, she accepted money to provide fake documents. She said she helped deliver 600 babies in South Texas, many of them now being denied passports. Those birth certificates were issued by the state of Texas, with the midwife’s name listed under “birth attendant.”

“I know that they are suffering now, but it’s out of my control,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of her admission.

►That is correct, it is out of her control, and it is up to the government to sort all of this out. I did, and do, feel bad for people who have grown up in the US and didn’t know they were not born here. It sucks. But we have rules, and if a parent bribes someone to file a fraudulent birth certificate then that person is not entitled to US citizenship. But the parents did this to these people, not you, not me, not the State Department, and not Trump.

For those who have received passport denials from the government, it affects not only their travel plans but their sense of identity as Americans.

One woman who has been denied, named Betty, said she had tried to get a passport to visit her grandfather as he was dying in Mexico. She went to a passport office in Houston, where government officials denied her request and questioned whether she had been born in the United States. “You’re getting questioned on something so fundamentally you,” said Betty, who spoke on the condition her last name not be used because of concerns about immigration enforcement.

►Another Mysterious Gypsy Woman makes a claim, a plausible one in my view, of a denial of her passport application. Too bad there isn’t any follow up on it - was her birth certificate filed by one of the midwives who was caught taking bribes? Seems like a pretty important element to leave out of the story about people getting their passport applications denied because midwives were taking bribes.

The denials are happening at a time when Trump has been lobbying for stricter federal voter identification rules, which would presumably affect the same people who are now being denied passports — almost all of them Hispanic, living in a heavily Democratic sliver of Texas.

►Again with the lie relating to the geographic region.

“That’s where it gets scary,” Diez said. For now, passport applicants who are able to afford the legal costs are suing the federal government over their passport denials. Typically, the applicants eventually win those cases, after government attorneys raise a series of sometimes bizarre questions about their birth. “For a while, we had attorneys asking the same question: ‘Do you remember when you were born?’ ” Diez said. “I had to promise my clients that it wasn’t a trick question.”

►Well then your clients are dumb. The implication that the government attorneys seem to think that a person would remember their own birth from their own memory of being there is so dumb I can not even be bothered to write about it.

Early-Afternoon Open Thread And Car Wash

—CBD

I just love the Left's double standards. Apparently the death of a liberal icon is license to say awful things about the sitting president, but any defense of the 2nd Amendment after a school shooting is politicizing the deaths of innocents, and is beyond the pale.

The gloves need to come off -- completely -- if we are to win this thing. And a roll of quarters in each hand wouldn't hurt...

Sunday Morning Book Thread 09-02-2018

—OregonMuse

Man Cave

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes. Oh, and we've got a new category of readers, escaped oafs and oafettes ('escaped oafs' is an anagram of 'Ace of Spades'). Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, and publishing by people who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants which Muldoon probably wears. He calls them his "fruits of the looms."

(h/t Witch Hammer for the pic which you can click on to see a larger-sized version)

Think You're Too Old To Write?

Here are some famous authors and their ages when their first book was published:

I wanted to get a shout out to
Bookman in Orange, which is one of the few remaining used bookstores in Southern California. For those of us who don't use E-readers, and still prefer the look and feel of a physical book in our hands, used bookstores are a great resource for building our libraries.

Bookman recently was unable to renew a lease, but rather than giving up and closing their store, they decided to start a GoFundMe page to help with moving costs, and relocated within the same city. Their goal is $30K, and they've made it to $11K so far. It would be great if the Horde pitched in to help.

So if any morons feel so inclined, especially those of you in Southern California, you can kick in a few bucks using Bookman's GoFundMe page.

Moron Recommendations

The science fiction novels of Robert J. Sawyer came up in the comments last week:

The first Sawyer book I read was Calculating God which flipped the syfy cliche on its head. A brilliant atheist scientist meets a theist alien who can't believe an otherwise intelligent being doesn't believe in God. I quite liked it and read other of his works. Then I read his celebration of utilitarian bioethics, Quantum Night, and was quite offended by it. I kept thinking the hero would wake up and realize that this is all evil but nooooooooooooooo!

49 Reading a kids book-Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. I don't know why its in my library. Not sure where it came from. It probably wouldn't be considered a classic today as it deals with a boy from the Ozarks-maybe around 1910-20 who loves his hunting dogs and chasing raccoons. Wouldn't be considered politically correct today. I am enjoying it though.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 26, 2018 09:12 AM (AllCR)

Yup. Where the Red Fern Grows is a indeed a YA classic. The wiki entry has some reviews that give potential readers an idea of what they'll be in for:

I remember crying so much through this book, and even today I tear up thinking of Old Dan and Little Ann. I also loaned this to my [then] children’s librarian, because the library copy was always out. I even marked the pages, “Get out tissue here.” — DeAnn Okamura

I love, love, love this book with all my heart and soul. My fourth grade teacher read it to me eons ago, and I’ve read it to two of my three boys. There’s something about weeping together uncontrollably that builds a community of readers… — Tess Alfonsin

They did a good job with the 1974 movie adaptation. However, I do NOT recommend the sequel, which stunk on ice. But it is part of one the Muse family stories:

It was a bad weekend in December and we were all sick with the stomach flu. There was nothing to do but sit around and be sick. Mrs. Muse had managed to bring home some VHS movies from the library (this was 1998 or 1999), and one of them was the Red Fern sequel. So we're all sitting in the family room, wrapped up in blankets, each one of us with his or her own barf bucket to contain any, uh, spillage that might occur. We pop in the Red Fern II tape and start watching and we're all slowly coming to realize that this is, without a doubt, one the worst movies we've ever seen. It was absolutely atrocious. I don't think we even finished it. I think we hit the 'eject' button at some point and popped in another tape, and this needs a bit of set-up: Back in the late 70s, NBC ran a short "Greatest Heroes of the Bible" mini-series and this was one of those episodes. It was the Old Testament story of Joseph and his coat of many colors and his abuse by his brothers who hated him. It was, in a word, terrible. I had watched the series when it was originally broadcast and had forgotten how bad it was. But what was worse, one of Joseph's brothers was played by John Larroquette and not only could he not act worth a toot, but I could not get that sleazebag character he used to play on the TV comedy Night Court out of my mind whenever I saw him on the screen. We were all miserable, sick to our stomachs, with nothing but crappy movies to watch, topped off with Larroquette's bad acting.

It was a horrible, horrible weekend, but it's one of our family memories we enjoy laughing about.

Anyway, Where the Red Fern Grows is a good book, and you should read it. It was published in 1961, before little boys suddenly decide they're really little girls and their teachers egg them on.

Books By Morons

Lurkette YounglingLurker e-mails:

I've been a longtime lurker on AoS (since I was about 13 and reading over my mom's shoulder).

This is the first time I've seen this: a 2nd generation 'ette. I don't know if this makes me happy or frightened.

I really enjoy the book thread and hearing about all the moron authors, which kind of inspired me to take up writing myself. I've recently released a fantasy book on Amazon, based around a game I played with a group of friends; the typical fantasy-adventure RPG, complete with cast of mythical creatures.

The first adventure of many... Within this book is recorded the origins of that legendary band of warriors, the Philanderers. It chronicles their daring exploits in the Nyokan crisis: their bravery, determination, ingenuity, and intoxication, as they fought to banish the serpentine menace that threatened their world.

It's only available in paperback currently, but the eBook is in development

___________

Moron author James Y. Bartlett has been called "Dick Francis of golf." That is, as Francis' mystery novels are set in the world of horse racing, Bartlett's novels, featuring intrepid golf writer Pete Hacker, who as you might guess, has a knack for solving mysteries, revolve around the sport of golf and major golf tournaments.

A body is buried in a bunker weeks before the start of the Masters golf tournament. When intrepid golf writer Pete Hacker begins to investigate, he runs up against a wall of silence from official Augusta and a feared killer from the South American drug cartels lurking in the azaleas. And he begins to learn about an unsavory past that may be about to catch up with Augusta National.

There’s trouble afoot in the Auld Grey Toon when golf writer Hacker and the world of golf arrive in St. Andrews for the playing of the Open Championship.

Before the tournament begins, a golf official is murdered and dropped into the Bottle Dungeon at St. Andrews Castle.

One prime suspect is a celebrity American resort developer. But there’s a University professor trying to outlaw golf and disrupt the tournament. And shady Russians turn up everywhere--chasing a caddie friend of Hacker and serving cocktails for the Marquis Cheape, who just happens to own the land beneath the Old Course.

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

Correction: Sen. Goldwater was the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, not the 1968 nominee.

"Experts" always botch the years that very famous candidates ran in very famous election years. It's not as if an "Expert" should know that Goldwater could
not have run in 1968, given that Nixon won the presidency in 1968.
Remember, he wrote a whole book arguing that non-"Experts" should never issue opinions outside their fields of credentialed expertise, if they have any at all.

By "Expert," I think he really means "Blowhard on Twitter who thinks he's much, much smarter and educated than he actually is."

Wow: Only After a Full Day of Interruptions and Grandstanding Is Justice-to-Be Kavanaugh Now Delivering His Opening StatementWhen I saw this on Fox, I thought it must be a rebroadcast from 9 or 10 am this morning. Nope. Live.